In Alberta, in freezing rain, we weren’t allowed into John’s college reunion because, his classmate explained, he hadn’t registered for it. Out of two hundred people in his class, he was the only one not on the list. He explained to me that it was the school’s fault, not his, that he’d pre-registered just as everyone else had, that it wasn’t his fault.

He kept telling me to stop letting it show on my face. To hide how I felt so that no one would know, no one would be able to read the proof of my shame and humiliation, which by then I always felt for John so he never needed to feel it himself.